


cracks like a wine glass

by wildcard_47



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:12:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lane slams his door shut, locks it, and immediately veers left down the hallway, into Campbell's office, fear prickling hot beneath his skin as he blurts: "Something's happened. Something's blocking my door."</p><p>AU for "Commissions and Fees" (or a good chunk of S5) -- Joan dies, Lane lives, and it's a mistake. Hints of Lane/unrequited Joan, and Joan/Roger if you squint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cracks like a wine glass

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure why I got the urge to write this, but the premise stems from a thought I had during s5, around the time of "Lady Lazarus"/"Dark Shadows" when we were all waiting for someone to die in a gruesome way. I was worried that Greg would return only to get violent with Joan re: their divorce.
> 
> Trigger warning: this story shows and makes reference to a hellish situation of domestic violence. It's not gratuitous, but it's not exactly sunshine, either, so if you'd like a different cup of tea I suggest clicking the back button.
> 
> Story is unbeta'd, so all typos are mine. Title is taken from the song "The Shivers (I've Got 'Em)" by Margot and the Nuclear So-and-So's.

Lane arrives at work on Monday to find the secretaries preparing for the workday and his office door stuck shut. No matter how forcefully he pushes at it, no matter how many times he fumbles with the latch and key, it does not budge.

Until, after nearly two minutes, it does. He is able to pry it open several inches, not enough to slip inside, but enough to catch a fleeting glimpse of a pale, gold-braceleted arm outstretched on the expanse of floor where his coffee table ought to be. Along with a flash of bright red hair. Enough to smell copper and bile – their stink bitter and overwhelming – and to glance up, to see a taut, thick cord dangling just behind the doorway transom. He slams the door shut, locks it, and immediately veers left down the hallway, into Campbell's office, fear prickling hot beneath his skin as he blurts: "Something's happened. Something's blocking my door."

Crane snorts out a laugh. Cosgrove looks confused, while Campbell just stares at him, uncomprehending, but gestures to the sofa with one hand, as if to say _be my guest._

Lane steels himself for horror as he steps up onto the cushions, but even this does not prepare him for the sight – the army man in rumpled khaki green, hung by his own belt, his boyish face twisted and purple in death. The man's wife – and god damn it, she is _still_  that, not for lack of trying – is sprawled several feet to the right, her skin so white it's tinted blue, legs and arms askew, and a red-black slash staining her torso and pooling under the skirt of her dress.

He cannot look at her face. Lane stumbles back and into the side of Campbell's desk, clumsy, pressing a hand to his mouth and thinking, for a terrible moment, that he's going to be sick on the spot. This spurs the others to look. Crane steps off the sofa, agape; Cosgrove swipes at his eyes, while Campbell is paper-white. After a moment, the latter man sets his jaw, grabs Crane by the elbow of his coat and begins to drag him from the room.

"Get Cooper. We have to close."

Once they're gone, Lane sinks into a sitting position on the desk, wishing that the floor would swallow him whole. There's a clinking noise, and Cosgrove proffers a glass in his direction, but Lane's hands are shaking so badly he can't even take it. The only words he can manage are in a voice just above a whisper. Call it penance to some indifferent entity, a twisted plea, an apology that is far too late. Joan was in danger – beautiful, brilliant Joan – and he did not see it. He did not help her.

"I didn't know. I didn't know."

After a hesitation, Ken sets the drink aside and claps a hand to Lane's shoulder. For a very brief moment, the young man's fingers dig into Lane's trapezoidal muscle so tightly he expects they will leave bruises. And just as suddenly, they are gone.

**

Don's mouth thins and twitches when they tell him, a muscle clenching in his jaw as he sinks down onto the arm of the leather sofa in the lounge, blinking quickly and staring at the tile. He does not speak. They avoid looking at him.

Roger stands rooted in place. His hat is strewn beside his feet, while his knuckles whiten around the handle of his leather briefcase. "Bullshit."

Cooper exhales, steeples his hands together on the table. "Roger—"

 _“_ _Shut up!"_

Sterling slings his briefcase toward the windowed wall of her office with a raw, animal yell. It hits the portable record player on the cabinet top, smashes the front speaker and the vinyl inside, then ricochets off the glass with a sharp thud. As the briefcase falls to the floor, the lid pops open. Papers scatter out into the room with a whispered hiss. And at the point of impact with the window, a tiny group of fractures grows in the glass, delicate as a spiderweb.

Now silent, Roger sways on his feet as if he is drunk, stumbles toward the plastic chair which Cooper has already drawn out for him and slumps into it, unseeing. On Cooper's other side, next to Lane, Campbell sniffs, then mops his nose with his jacket sleeve, looking for all the world like a little boy.

Lane needs something to do with his hands. He pours a dram of whiskey, pushes the glass in Sterling's direction.

"Take it.”

At that particular moment, he has a thought which proceeds to take root within the darkest corners of his mind, grows and flowers its way into certainty:  _it ought to have been me._

He does not want to dwell on this insidious thought, or examine why, at first glance, it might be true. All he can explain is that it _i_ _s true,_ somehow, it rings as a truth so clear Lane cannot rid himself of the conviction. Joan is dead and he is alive and it is a _mistake –_ a foul, twisted, gruesome mistake which can never be undone.

He wants to smash through the door seconds before it happens, cut down her goddamned husband with his bare hands, and draw her, shaking but safe, into his arms. He wants to cradle her limp body to his chest and weep until his voice goes, to gently wipe the blood from her manicured hands.

He reaches for the glass in front of him, draining back the rest of his whiskey in a single gulp.


End file.
